Council barred from buying energy from community groups 

Council barred from buying energy from community groupsReutersA council has been told that buying renewable energy from local community groups could fall foul of national regulations.Bristol City Council wants to buy cleaner energy directly from local generators under a deal known as ‘sleeving’, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.The scheme is designed to cut costs as a lot of energy is generated in Bristol but sold to the National Grid and then bought back by the council at an inflated price.”Unfortunately, we’ve hit a few technical roadblocks while looking at how we get through the local generation element of the sleeving arrangements,” said Helen Reed, head of City Leap client and energy service.”We really want that locally generated electricity, because that’s the central part of what we’re doing.”We’ve been working through a solution with Ameresco, but the time it’s taken to get to that solution means that we’re now not going to have the sleeving arrangements in place by March 2025.”Ameresco is an American firm hired by the council in a £424m deal known as Bristol City Leap in 2022 to orchestrate the council’s transition away from fossil fuels.The current setback relates to the government’s rules on procurement, which prevent council’s and other public bodies from limiting contracts based on specific types of bidders in a limited list of locations.The current deals allow energy producers from across the country to bid for the energy contract.This latest setback has pushed the deal back by at least six months and added £643,000 to the council’s energy bill, but there is still optimism that a deal can be completed.”We’ve had a meeting with Bristol Energy Cooperative to discuss the new mechanism with them and to introduce them to Ameresco and we had a similar meeting with Ambition Lawrence Weston a couple of weeks ago,” said David Gray, energy supply manager at Bristol City Council.”So the dialogue has very much started and both those groups are interested in what we’re proposing.”If completed, the deal would be worth £78m and cost the council £33m, which is considerably cheaper than its current plan.The energy from the Sleeving arrangement will go directly towards powering council buildings and infrastructure such as street and traffic lights.”I love the ambition of this, it’s really exciting and it’s the first of its kind in the UK,” said Labour councillor Ellie King, vice-chair of the environment committee.”There’s an opportunity to model for the rest of the country if we get it right, and roll it out to other local authorities.”More on this storyFloating wind farms to help reach net zero targetsEnergy scheme aims to help city reach net zeroCouncil plans green energy deal to cut billsRelated internet linksBristol City Council’s electricity planAmeresco/Bristol City LeapBristol City CouncilBristolRenewable energyBristol